I would think the Japanese would want the Aegis ships deployed more to collect data on the rocket launch with their radars:

The Japanese government is mulling deploying Aegis destroyers in the East Sea and the East China Sea to intercept a long-range rocket North Korea plans to launch around the 70th anniversary of its ruling Workers’ Party on October 10.

Japan’s Sankei Shimbun daily reported on Sunday that Tokyo is considering deploying the destroyers equipped with sea-based missile defenses to the East Sea and the East China Sea to prevent the North’s rocket or its debris from falling on Japanese territory.

The paper said Japan is also considering deploying the Air Self-Defense Forces’ surface-to-air guided Patriot missiles in the area near the capital city and Okinawa.  [KBS World Radio]

The Stars & Stripes has an article published that details how some elderly women in South Korea turn to prostitution to supplement their incomes due to the lack of a robust Social Security like pension system:

As about a dozen elderly men loiter in a small plaza near a cinema, mostly chatting or watching people pass by, several deeply wrinkled women stroll among them, trolling for customers willing to pay for sex in nearby motels.

“Hey, do you want to go with me? I can treat you really well,” a 76-year-old woman with a limp says as a reporter approaches her on a recent sunny afternoon.

Despite a police crackdown this spring that resulted in 33 arrests, including an 84-year-old woman, the so-called “Bacchus ladies” can still be seen near the Piccadilly theater in Seoul’s Jongno neighborhood. The nickname comes from the popular energy drink that many of the prostitutes have traditionally sold.

The middle-aged and elderly women and their customers — both pitied and scorned in this conservative country — provide a look at the dark side of South Korea’s rapid economic rise and erosion of traditional parent-child roles. As a growing, ultra-competitive middle class has become preoccupied with getting ahead, many elderly and poor people have been left to fend for themselves.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

And SecState Kerry keeps talking about tougher sanctions…and talking…and no action on NK human rights, etc. https://t.co/ii1dDE2c2Y

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) September 26, 2015

In this aerial photo, bumper-to-bumper traffic in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, clogs one side of a highway linking Seoul to the southwestern port city of Mokpo on Sept. 25, 2015, as South Korea’s annual exodus for the Chuseok fall holiday begins. Chuseok, which falls on Sept. 27 this year, is the season for family reunions, with Koreans traditionally offering a ritual feast to their ancestors on Aug. 15 of the lunar calendar.(Yonhap)

I would be surprised if North Korea does not notify the IMO and ICAO of their expected rocket launch because of how they have been wanting to normalize their space program and not link it to their ICBM development program.  This could be a sign that they are not 100% confident that the rocket launch will be ready by October 10th.  I guess we will see what happens:

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said North Korea has not given them any notice regarding a long-range rocket launch.

The Voice of American said on Saturday that the two international bodies confirmed via email that Pyongyang has not given any notice.

North Korea had notified both organizations of its plan prior to its long-range rocket launch in December 2012, informing them of when the launch will take place and where the rocket will fall.

North Korea has suggested the possibility of launching a space rocket around October 10th, the anniversary of the founding of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. North’s Korean Central News Agency carried an interview earlier this month with a key scientist, who discussed the possibility of such a plan.  [KBS World Radio]

The accusations about special treatment that allowed the two female officers to graduate the US Army’s Ranger School has just gotten more serious:

But whereas men consistently were held to the strict standards outlined in the Ranger School’s Standing Operating Procedures handbook sources say, the women were allowed lighter duties and exceptions to policy.

Multiple sources told PEOPLE:

• Women were first sent to a special two-week training in January to get them ready for the school, which didn’t start until April 20. Once there they were allowed to repeat the program until they passed – while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard.

• Afterward they spent months in a special platoon at Fort Benning getting, among other things, nutritional counseling and full-time training with a Ranger.

• While in the special platoon they were taken out to the land navigation course – a very tough part of the course that is timed – on a regular basis. The men had to see it for the first time when they went to the school.

• Once in the school they were allowed to repeat key parts – like patrols – while special consideration was not given to the men.

• A two-star general made personal appearances to cheer them along during one of the most challenging parts of the school, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.

The end result? Two women – First Lts. Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver – graduated August 21 (along with 381 men) and are wearing the prestigious Ranger Tab. Griest was surprised they made it.

“I thought we were going to be dropped after we failed Darby [part of Benning] the second time,” Griest said at a press conference before graduation. “We were offered a Day One Recycle.”  [People Magazine]

The whole article is worth a read, but I think the words from Major General Miller in the article in regards to a woman will graduate Ranger School need further context to be a smoking gun.  As far as the claims of special treatment I think it is fair to say that the female Rangers did get special treatment compared to male Ranger candidates from non-infantry MOSs.  Infantry soldiers that attend Ranger school have an advantage over other candidates especially the officers because of the training they do to become proficient in their MOS which feeds naturally into tasks required during Ranger School.  It appears the Army senior leadership made a decision to give female candidates as much of an advantage to pass the course as infantry soldiers receive.

Yeonmi Park who is a well known North Korean human rights activist has recently just published a book about her experiences growing up in North Korea titled In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom.  A good portion of the book is highlighted in this Telegraph article which has little nuggets like this about growing up in North Korea:

One of the main problems in North Korea was a fertiliser shortage. When the economy collapsed in the 1990s the Soviet Union stopped sending fertiliser to us, and our own factories stopped producing it. This led to crop failures that made the famine even worse.

So the government came up with a campaign to fill the fertiliser gap with a local and renewable source: human and animal waste. Every worker and schoolchild had a quota to fill. You can imagine what kind of problems this created for our families. Every member of the household had a daily assignment, so when we got up in the morning, it was like a war.

My aunts were the most competitive. ‘Remember not to poop in school,’ my aunt in Kowon told me every day. ‘Wait to do it here.’ Whenever my aunt in Songnam-ri travelled away from home and had to poop somewhere else, she loudly complained that she didn’t have a plastic bag with her to save it.

‘Next time I’ll remember,’ she would say. Some people would lock up their outhouses to keep the poop thieves away. At school the teachers would send us out into the streets to find dog mess and carry it back to class. This is not something you see every day in the West.  [The Telegraph]

The whole article is worth a read.

https://twitter.com/freekorea_us/status/647846997534318592

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) inspects the northern free-trade city of Rason, which has been devastated by a flood, in this photo provided by North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun on Sept. 18, 2015. Typhoon Goni soaked the northern part of North Korea, particularly hitting Rason. The flood is known to have left at least 40 people dead and about 1,420 families homeless. Kim ordered the completion of flood recovery works in the city before the 70th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea on Oct. 10. (Yonhap)

South Korea is looking to add further detection capabilities along the DMZ:

 As North Korea watchers look for signs of a missile launch in upcoming weeks, South Korea’s defense acquisition agency has announced it is producing “mini” drones for surveillance.

The drones, which will be distributed to South Korea’s army and marines in the next three years, have the ability to “surveil and transmit images on a real-time basis around the clock,” the Defense Acquisition Program Administration said in a statement.

The drones are 4.6 feet long, nearly 6 feet wide and can fly hour-long missions at speeds of up to 50 mph, Yonhap News reported.

Although DAPA’s statement did not mention North Korea, the drones are thought to be intended to monitor the Koreas’ tense land and sea border, which was the site of the latest provocation by Pyongyang last month. A land mine planted by the North exploded and maimed two South Korean soldiers while on routine patrol in the Demilitarized Zone.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.